Tag: Norse Gods

In my online course Norse Mythology (there is still time to sign up, we just started yesterday) we will focus on the energy of Odin from March 27 – April 3 2017.

Now this is not a tarot course. But there is a strong connection between Odin and the tarot card of the Hanged Man. This is something that my dear friend Deborah Gregory said in one of her comments on Mindfunda (I love all the people who take the effort to write a comment, I learn a lot from you).

One of the meanings of Odin’s name is Poetry, and Deborah happens to write poetry about the meaning of tarot cards. That is synchronicity waving hello and kissing you on the cheek isn’t it? So I decided to dedicate this post to the Hanged man in the tarot.

Tarot Card Hanged Man

You might know that the tarot represents the journey of life. And sometimes you are trapped in this situation. As Jung once said: “the unconscious always tries to produce an impossible situation in order to force the individual to bring out his very best”.

But why did Odin, Father God of the Norse mythology, feel the need to hang himself upside down on the tree of life for nine days, stabbing himself with his own spear?

“The Speech of the High One”

I know I hung on that windy tree,
Swung there for nine long nights, Wounded by my own blade,
Bloodied for Odin,
Myself an offering to Myself:
Bound to the tree
That no man knows
Wither the root of it run.

None gave me bread,
None gave me drink.
Down to the deepest depths I peered
Until I speid the Runes.
With a Roaring cry I seized them up,
Then dizzt and fainting, I fell.

Well-being I won
And wisdom too.
I grew and took joy in my growth:
From a word to a word
I was lead to a word,
From a deed to another deed.

From the Old Norse
The Poetic Edda (ca.A.D.1200)”

Tarot Card the Hanged Man and the Tree

There the man is, hanging upside down. In order to satisfy an urgent inner need for knowledge. Did you ever notice how we are trees walking upside down? Our roots are our brains. Odin had his brain near the root of the Life tree.

Trees take carbon dioxide out of the air and distribute oxygen, human beings do exactly the opposite. So being upside down on a tree makes a lot more sense than you would have imagined at first glance.

So it was knowledge beyond this world that Odin was looking for. How is that represented in the tarot card of the Hanged Man?

Tarot Card the Hanged Man

It is a card of surrender. When there is no way out, the only way is in. Most of the decks of tarot display the hanged man in the same position. His arms are shaped like a triangle, and his legs are shaped like a cross.

The spirit, represented by the triangle is dominated by mater, represented by the cross-shaped legs. It is matter over mind in this card.

The only thing to do is to surrender. Struggling will only wrap you up more tight. We are always defined by the things we believe in. Consciously or subconscious.

And like Odin, we all need to investigate if our basic assumptions really represent the things our soul longs for.

And dreams are a way to uncover that meaning. The Norse Mythology course gives you an incubation dedicated to a Norse God each week.

Freya the Vanir Goddess, Odin the Aesir Got, Loki the half god half Gaint and the spiritual realm that we are going to visit using lucid dream techniques.

Mindfunda

Site of Dutch psychologist Susanne van Doorn. I try to write a Mindfunda every other day.

Odin is the Norse Father God. This blog is about my new online Norse Mythology course that starts March 20, the first day of spring.

Odin the Father

Being brought up Catholic, my young mind attached godly wisdom into the image of a Father God. This Father god, somewhere up high, was an old grumpy guy, with a beard.

As soon as I read in the bible that he had ordered a father to sacrifice his only son, I became very suspicious about this Father God. I liked mother Mary much more.

Odin is a father god of the human beings on earth, but also of Baldr. The way Odin endeared me was that he sacrificed his own eye into the well of Mirmir.

In this course we will investigate these tory about the murder of his som Baldr and how that resonates with our own feelings of betrayal when something you valued more than life itself has gone lost.

Odin and the Well

In order to gain inner wisdom Odin sacrificed an eye in the well of Mirmir. Whenever you dream about eyes, whenever you dream about wells, you should definitely be signing up for this course.

On the forum you will be able to share those dreams with your fellow students. In the dream incubation that is included in this course, you will visit the well, and draw the water of life out of the Well of Remembrance.

Your inner knowledge is available to you. All you need to do is to consciously lift this knowledge up from out of the darkness of the well of remembrance into the daylight.

Odin and the Ravens Huginn and Muninn

If you have a connection with ravens as totem animal, this is the lesson for you. Odin had two ravens:

Huginn and Muninn,
Every day
They fly over earth ground.
I fear for Huginn,
That he may not return,
But even more I fear
For the loss of Muninn.

The Elder Edda

Photo by Eamon Maguire

Huginn is usually associated with thought, and Muninn with memory. You will most certainly understand why thoughts can be like birds, flying in and out of your head.

Losing your memory is like losing yourself. yes, I know that we are more than the addition of our past experiences. But there are core-memories your sense of self is build around. We will explore this in this lesson of the course.

Odin and the Sacrifice

We are surrounded by data. Big Brother Google is bringing you every website about every subject you are curious about.

Little entrepreneurs like me have to give away knowledge for free, in order to get paying customers. And we do that, because it is in our genes to help people get the best out of themselves.

Odin would have thrived in an age like this. Not only did he sacrifice an eye to gain wisdom. He also hung himself on the tree of life for nine days.

On the Yggdrasil he made the ultimate sacrifice to unveil the magic knowledge of the runes.

Runes

We will not be getting into the oracle of the runes, but we will be exploring magic in our own dreams, visions and lives that can tell us something about our life’s destiny.

Odin and the Yggdrasil

Last but not least, another theme in this course will be the Yggdrasil and its nine realms of being, the nine days that Odin hung himself. What is the spiritual value of number nine?

What does this magic number mean in your own life and in your own dreams? How many of the different reams of Yggdrasil do you recognise from films, from books, from poetry, or from dreams?

THIS CONTENT IS CREATED BY SUSANNE VAN DOORN, AUTHOR AND OWNER OF MINDFUNDA; MAKING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF PSYCHOLOGY, MYTHOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY EASY TO USE IN YOUR PERSONAL LIFE!

What is Mindfunda about?

My name is Susanne van Doorn, I am a Dutch psychologist, blogger and author. I have been working with psychology, dreams and mythology ever since I finished my study in psychology at Tilburg University. I made this independent site to share insights, and recent scientific articles about the brain, dreams, and mythology for use in your personal life.

This posting is categorised as Mythofunda:
“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths” Joseph Campbell used to say. This part of Mindfunda shows you how your personal mythology can create peace in your life.

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